Old Friends: Our Nature

Our Nature

by Rae Armantrout

 

The very flatness

of portraits

makes for nostalgia

in the connoisseur.

Here’s the latest

little lip of wave

to flatten

and spread thin.

Let’s say

it shows our recklessness,

our fast gun,

our self-consciousness

which was really

our infatuation

with our own fame,

our escapes,

the easy way

we’d blend in

with the peasantry,

our loyalty

to our old gang

from among whom

it was our nature

to be singled out

 

National Poetry Month #37